Publisher's Summary

In this hour, here there by monsters is what it used to say on the edges of maps, and it describes the show pretty well. We start cartoonist Lynda Barry, who reminisces about her favorite monsters. Then we continue with Justin Cronin, whose novel The Passage has been described as "an engrossingly horrirfic account of a post-apocalyptic America." He tells Jim Fleming the idea came out of a discussion with his nine-year-old daughter.

Next, Stephen Asma teaches philosophy at Columbia College in Chicago. He talks to Anne Strainchamps about his book On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Joshua Blu Buhs is an independent scholar and the author of Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend. But he tells Steve Paulson he doesn't really think the creature exists.

Finally, Richard Holmes is fascinated by what he calls "The Age of Wonder." The subtitle of his book is "how the romantic generation discovered the beauty and the terror of science," and he tells Steve Paulson about how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein came directly out of the scientific climate of the time. [Broadcast Date: July 28, 2010]